oh, yesterday was a difficult day. a day of overwhelming emotion: jubilation, fear, frustration, anger. sadness, comfort.
early on i was in high spirits. i got to eat real food for the first time since the surgery. but early afternoon i had an appointment at the radiation clinic, and that dragged on and on, taxing my limited energy. although i realize its necessary, endless talk of worst-possible outcomes (blindness? deafness? more cancer? permanent loss of you-name-it?) saps my positivity, too.
some coworkers from work came to visit me but i was still filling out forms at the radiation clinic. they actually managed to track me down and visit there, but we didnt have much chance to talk.
at the end of this visit, there was some misunderstanding. a complicated issue around when to schedule a visit to a dentist for a preliminary creation of an oral "immobilization device" which is problematic because my newly reconstructed tongue is still "finding" its shape. there was an appointment scheduled at first for immediately, then for two future dates. i left the radiation clinic sure at least that i had no more appointments that day, for which i was glad given i felt tired and overwhelmed and needed to pee – not a fully trivial undertaking, currently.
but upon my return to my home ward – 10th floor ward 2 – a tribe of nurses descended and insisted i needed to go off to the dentist right away. no time to pee, go wait for the orderly escort by the elevator right now. i tried desperately to explain why this wasnt correct. i tried in korean (which seems to get worse than useless under stress), i tried english. the nurses showed concerned faces but didnt understand what i was complaining about, so they ignored me.
i was furious. not even so much over the appointment mix up as over the feeling i was being ignored. i stewed in this as i waited by the elevator. and waited. because the orderly never came, because in fact there was no appointment.
being right but having been utterly impotent to communicate effectively was worse than any pain id been subjected to so far. when the nurse led me back to my room, i was inconsolable. the nurses were just befuddled, since they didnt understand what was causing my unhappiness – it wasnt any physical symptom. they figured it was loneliness and called curt and grace.
in fact, my worst pain experienced so far, in korean cancer camp, is this psychic agony of failed communication. theres irony in that in this strange, abnormal situation, it remains that it is the banal fact of my poor mastery of korean that finally reduces me to sobbing.
grace came later and consoled me some, she wanted to yell at the staff. but by then id calmed down and counselled against it – my first maxim through this has been, dont piss off your caregivers, no matter what.
actually last night i slept for longer stretches and more deeply than so far. i continue to improve. but i cried for a long time yesterday.